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20. Barley

Official accounts speak of Larvartin being a brewery clerk in his youth; this is true except for the significant omission that at the same time his father was the proprietor of the Sestenburg brewery, which of course was and remains the largest in Dubitania. He was the heir apparent; as soon as it became clear that his brother Tibri was uninterested in brewing, old Cesari Larvartin decided that Marki must be his successor, and Tibri’s death obviously settled the matter. In spite of all his other concerns, Larvartin did take over in due course as the head of the business, and surprisingly he remains in personal charge of the brewery to this day.

Of course, ownership of a brewery did not make one part of the aristocracy exactly; the old ruling class did not yield to mere wealth so easily – but the Larvartins had been wealthy for three generations and were beginning to make their way into the fringes of polite society. Larvartin took another step up by marrying Esmeralda – a frightful woman, by the way, but she was the daughter of one of the Marcher Counts.

I used to think that the retention of the old brewery was a good sign. I thought it was encouraging that among all the Lenin Squares and Larvartin Streets, the brewery remained stubbornly the Sestenburg. Now I know that this is just part of the wider pattern of patternlessness.

I should like to be able to say that Sestenburger Doppelbock, at least, has remained as good as it ever was, but although it is still a fine beer, even it has suffered to some degree. Larvartin never allowed the brewery to go short of barley or hops, but at times he has been forced to bring supplies in from outside the brewery’s traditional area, and indeed from outside the country altogether; and I’m afraid this does make a difference. How can it be, you might ask, that this was necessary? Isn’t it the case that Twentyland has always enjoyed dramatic agricultural surpluses?

In Twentyland we have of course had the advantage of not one, but two agricultural revolutions. Under Russian domination, there was a half-hearted attempt at collectivisation which only succeeded in bringing together groups of peasants in some of the less fertile parts of the country, leaving larger enterprises and even a few of the old feudal estates virtually intact. When Larvartin became President, he was visited by a delegation from the Agricultural Worker’s Union , the organisation which had succeeded Tillarin’s ridiculous guild, itself the successor to CINDATA. The delegation reminded him of his own role as a founding member of CINDATA and the struggle for a ten-denari wage, and called on him to undertake a thorough reform of farming. Their proposals naturally involved a minimum wage, but they also called for a redistribution of property, allowing their members access to land of their own. Larvartin was at his most jovial that day. He told them he would satisfy all their desires, but that he proposed to learn from the errors of Soviet collectivisation. They should understand, he said, that this was not a matter to be undertaken by the central government; no, the matter was in their own hands. Entirely in their own hands. But they could rely on him to bring the spades, and if necessary, the guns.

Not all of the members of the union were pleased with this response – they had been rather hoping that the central government would indeed undertake the land reform programme itself. But they thought it wise not to object. A week later the first worker invasion took place at a farm outside Belparica: one morning the farmer found a group of armed workers standing outside his door. They told him his farm was being collectivised, and he had an hour to pack and get out. Instead, he and his family barricaded themselves into the farmhouse and called the police. The Belparica police did not appear, but three CPV men arrived, broke down the farmhouse door, and took the farmer away, leaving his wife and children to flee as best they could.

This scene was repeated with variations at hundreds of Twentyland farms over the next few months. The seized farms were generally divided up between the invaders, who either turned their allocation into primitive subsistence operations or frankly allowed them to run wild.

The disorganised and haphazard nature of this supposed collectivisation movement led some to protest, demanding that Larvartin must step in, either defending the farmers or imposing some kind of organised programme. The initial response was an edict which retrospectively legalised the seizures which had taken place, and provided the basis for future ones.

Larvartin called me into his grand salon at the Palace one day and showed me a letter from the Agricultural Workers Union begging him to introduce a more regular collectivisation programme.

“You see how it is, Lucas?” he said, “I always tell them these matters are in their own hands, but in the end it always comes down to me. Well, I suppose we must stir ourselves.”

He had a squad of CPV men waiting outside: we drove for a couple of hours, out of Sescastri and up to the foothills of the Graupins on the borders of Andrania Province. This was a fertile area and we passed many prosperous-looking farms, but the one whose gate we turned in at surpassed them all. Everything here was in order, no weeds, everything in immaculate rows, and the barley in particular appeared to be flourishing. As we made our way up the drive, a whole range of crops and animals presented themselves to our gaze one after another, all in the very best of condition. It was a large estate, and it took some time to reach the house and outbuildings at the centre.

There, the CPV men ran inside and emerged after a few minutes with the proprietor, in his shirtsleeves with hands tied behind him. His face was so white I thought he might faint.

“Molerin!” said Larvartin, “We’ve met before, haven’t we? I thought I might come and look at that barley you were talking about. I think you were right – it’s just what I need for the brewery.”

A group of workers appeared round the corner: they hesitated and then came forward.

“Beloved leader!” said one of them nervously, “We are honoured!”

“Have no fear,” said Larvartin, “I am here to help: we have come to introduce collectivisation.”

“Oh, but we are collectivised already,” said the worker, “Mr Molerin here told us that he did not think it was right for him to continue in ownership of the farm any more, so last month we set up a worker’s collective and he turned over the ownership of the land and assets to the committee. He remains as manager, but his pay is the same as ours and he is answerable to the committee.”

For a moment Larvartin actually looked flummoxed, but then he shook his head.

“I can see, comrades,” he said to the CPV men, “This is going to be harder than I hoped. Take the lot of them.”

He had all the farm workers and their families herded away with Molerin. They scattered petrol in the farmhouse and set fire to the place.

The first Agrarian Revolution was finally brought to a conclusion six months later by the intervention of Ursin, who brusquely told Larvartin that large areas of the country were in chaos and he personally would not allow any further use of his men to support seizures. Reluctantly Larvartin declared collectivisation complete. That winter we suffered starvation in three provinces and suffered the humiliation of accepting food aid. By now being humble before the Russians had lost some of its edge, but it was still a terrible blow to national pride to accept help from Hungarians, and even worse, from Romania, though in the latter case the quantities involved were little more than token.

Larvartin was somewhat embarrassed, not by the crisis he had engendered, but by the sneering reaction it evoked in the foreign press, and he eagerly grasped at the opportunity to put matters right which was offered a few years later by the principles of his favourite Blumen.

Blumen, who now had his own research institute, had been concentrating on the application of cryptomorphic principles to plant growth. Larvartin and I visited his laboratory where we were overwhelmed by a display of giant pumpkins, perfect sheaves of wheat, magnificent turnips, and so on. Larvartin told Blumen that his collectivisation had been betrayed by deviant elements, but that he now had every confidence of making good all the country’s losses. Many photographs were taken of him posing with the pumpkins, and these have appeared regularly in our newspapers ever since to illustrate the success of the year’s harvest. The age of the photographs is evident from two factors: first, Comrade Larvartin never looks any older, but more conclusively, since that year, no pumpkins have grown in Twentyland.

Larvartin issued an edict that only Blumenised seed was to be planted that year. He immediately received messages from leading scientists asking him to rescind the edict: a delegation from the People’s academy visited him. He received them in his office at the Agraci Palace, and I vividly remember what a hangdog, frightened lot they were. Their spokesman, perhaps not the ideal choice, was Professor Vitalin of the Scholastic University of Lexandrin. With extreme deference and courtesy he explained that although academics and farmers appreciated the significance of Blumen’s work, it had been impossible to reproduce his results. Large-scale trials would be necessary before the country’s entire agricultural production could be staked on the immediate success of the theory. Professor Vitalin quoted from Italian and American journals which listed flaws in Blumen’s reasoning and science; one of the American ones said that the theory was saved from obvious falsity only because large parts of it were incomprehensible, and it listed ‘Twenty high-school science errors’. This too was probably a tactical error – Larvartin was never likely to listen to criticism from Italy, and anything the Americans disapproved of must in his eyes be good.

He listened to the delegation, however, and thanked them for coming.

“Professor Vitalin,” he said, “What was your father’s occupation?”

Vitalin looked startled.

“He was a judge, beloved leader, in the High Court.”

“I see,” said Larvartin. He went on to ask the same question of other members of the delegation, and his point became clear. They were the sons of landowners, bishops, and other professors. I noticed that Larvartin was being a little selective; Dr Forobdin in the front row was famously the son of a rubbish-collector, and Lucia Palatzia, I seemed to remember, was an orphan. But they were not asked. Instead Larvartin pointed out Blumen’s humble origins; he was being asked then, he said rhetorically, to take the judgement of capitalist scientists and the offspring of the upper classes as somehow inherently better than that of a simple worker and a native Twentylander? Perhaps they were right. Perhaps the evidence was on their side. Perhaps Blumen’s methods had not achieved results yet. But what was this? He held up a photograph of himself embracing one of Blumen’s giant pumpkins.

The senior members of the delegation were dismissed from their posts, and poor Vitalin found himself taking up residence in the darker cellars of the Agraci Palace. A week later I had a letter from three collectives based near Blumen’s laboratory; they were complaining about his confiscation of all the entries at the market gardening competition they had organised amongst themselves. I discovered that Blumen had not succeeded so far in growing anything at all, and had shown us these ‘borrowed’ specimens of agricultural produce instead. I made sure Larvartin saw these complaints, but I said nothing directly about them.

That year we were saved only by our inefficiency: it was impossible to blumenise all the seed in the country in time for planting, and impossible to check effectively on compliance with the edict. But Twentyland, which had been a sizeable net exporter in almost all agricultural categories now became desperately dependent on imports of wheat and other commodities which we could ill afford. Out in the country there was frank famine; in Andrania and Servinia the population fell to forty percent of its pre-war levels, and not entirely through emigration.

Larvartin attributed the failure of the crop to sabotage, and in particular to the non-use of blumenised seed. He sent out patrols of CPV men to check on compliance. There was no escape from these patrols: if they found signs of blumenised seed in your barns it meant you had stored the seed instead of sowing it; if they found unblumenised seed it meant you had planted that, and the unavailability of blumenised seed was not accepted as an excuse. Most of the farmers who were still contriving to keep their farms in operation were now herded into ‘Explanation camps’ for re-education. Their farms were collectivised and labour was provided by conscripted students and academics who had been identified as harbouring anti-Blumenite sympathies; by working on the land, they were to gain a new and more correct perspective.

“You have shown yourselves traitors as intellectuals,” said Larvartin in a little pamphlet which the sneering CPV men handed out to them, “But perhaps you can yet become happy and useful as agricultural labourers. Seize your future, comrades!”

53,317 words. Still going…

19. The Battle of Sescastri

Stilin’s manuscript was not very well organised. Instead of a connected narrative, he seemed to have written about particular episodes at different times as the mood took him. These were generally bound together with white tape, or sometimes stapled, and all put together in a general heap. Some of the sheafs were yellowing and dog-eared. One was prominently labelled ‘SESCASTRI’. I took it from the pile and began to read.

We joined the Red Army as it finally approached the borders of Twentyland. As it became clear that the Germans were going to lose the war, the Resistance had gathered itself for a new effort. If the weakened Germans could be thrown out by Dubitanian efforts, a measure of independence might be achieved and Russian influence limited. It would also be no small thing for national pride to be able to say that we had freed ourselves, instead of simply being assimilated by another bloated empire.

The surviving members of the Twenty found that they now had renewed support. Many who had previously despaired took heart; others prudently calculated that joining the resistance now would give them a stronger position in the post-war nation. Moreover, the Germans, weakened by the removal of every man they could spare to fight the Russians, looked increasingly vulnerable.

A great uprising was planned and carefully timed; when we rolled into Andrania with the Red Army, we found that Nipoli was already in the hands of the Twenty and the Germans were keeping up only a last stubborn resistance in the suburbs of Andra, which they abandoned at our approach. Twentyland was a geographical reality again. Obertin, Tabula, and Hofstadt met us on the road and we all entered the city together in triumph, with cheering crowds on every street. We set up a base in the foyer of the grand Municipal Hall of Andra, the only part of the building still intact; the retreating Germans had vengefully attempted to destroy it with explosives. The first evening was given over to celebration, but after that we ran into trouble.

In Sescastri, a whole range of different groups had come together to rise against the Nazis; democrats, Royalists, ethnic and religious parties were all represented. Naturally members of the Twenty played the leading role. With weapons they had brought out of hiding, improvised or stolen, these heroic partisans had actually succeeded in displacing the demoralised Nazis, taking control of the centre and East of the city. Obertin and our other colleagues urged the Russians now to lose no time in pressing forward to reinforce them. Larvartin, to all our astonishments, opposed this.

Obertin and Tabula assumed at first that Larvartin wanted the resistance to have time to take full control of the capital before the Russians arrived; they assured him that Sescastri would be completely out of Nazi hands within twenty-four hours, but stressed that there were great risks involved and that it was imperative the Russians got on the road as soon as possible. But that was not the way Larvartin was thinking. The rebels, he said were not the true champions of the people of Twentyland, but the undigested remains of reactionary Dubitania. These people were as much the enemies of Twentyland as the Germans, and if the two were at each other’s throat, we should not intervene until they had finished. Hofstadt said nothing to this: he simply left the camp and went to join the socialist Resistance in Livorin with a group of his personal allies and friends. Obertin and Tabula remonstrated with Larvartin, but could not shift him.

For their part, the Russian commanders said they planned to move forward immediately, whatever the locals thought about it. But Larvartin told them that he was acting on Comrade Stalin’s personal instructions; he produced an envelope which he said contained specific guidance; no one was to advance on Sescastri until he, Larvartin, was satisfied that the time was right. The Russians were not really convinced by this, but there was just enough doubt in their minds to make them decide to wait a little longer. After all, it was nothing to them if the Germans and Dubitanians fought among themselves for a while.

The next day the rebels succeeded in ejecting the Germans from Sescastri completely, and even captured a few slightly damaged tanks. The German forces fell back on Belparica. For a day, no-one moved. In Andra, Obertin and Tabula desperately tried to persuade the Russians to move forward, but their efforts were cancelled out by Larvartin, who continued to insist that the time was not right. The Russians had requested clarification from Moscow, but since this was allegedly a matter of personal instructions from Stalin, only Stalin could give this, and for the moment he failed to do so. Tabula obtained advice from his British contacts, but this was a tactical mistake; the Russians raised their eyebrows; maybe Larvartin was right, they thought, and settled more firmly in Andra than before.

The Germans were now being reinforced by others who had evacuated from Yugoslavia. They noticed the Russians’ loss of momentum, and smarting at their expulsion by ordinary citizens, launched a counter-attack on Sescastri. It began with a prolonged bombardment which smashed many of the city’s great buildings, previously undamaged, and forced the Resistance into what shelter they could find. Desperate messages were sent to the Russians asking for their immediate assistance.

On the second day of what was now the full-scale Battle of Sescastri, Obertin left Andra in disgust and hurried back to the capital to give what help he could; Tabula tried to keep up the pressure on the Russians. They now received a message from Stalin; they were not to hesitate, it said, but should press ahead as Comrade Larvartin instructed. Surely, insisted Tabula, this was clear – they must press ahead as soon as possible. No, said Larvartin; read the message carefully; they were to press ahead as he instructed, and only as he instructed. And he instructed them to remain in Andra for the time being. The Russians shrugged and sent a further request for clarification.

In Sescastri, the Resistance fought valiantly, but ordinary men and women armed with knives and Molotov cocktails were ultimately no match for German troops with tanks and machine guns. The Germans took their time, advancing systematically street by street, leaving no building standing and no man, woman or child alive.

Now at last the Russians decided to move forward, but they moved slowly and cautiously and instead of the main Fergastri road, they took the slower route via Nivilli. In Nivilli they paused again for another twenty-four hours, hoping that further clarification might now arrive; then they moved on again, reaching the outskirts of Sescastri the following day. At that point they came into contact with some lightly-armed German forces, and halted once more. The Germans had thrown a cordon round the entire city to block off the Resistance’s escape. By now they had reduced most of the city to ruins, and the shattered remnants of the Resistance were pinned down in a tiny area of the eastern suburbs.

Now at last Larvartin said the Russians might advance; when they did so the Germans fell back on Belparica again without attempting to defend the wreck of Sescastri.

I don’t think anything contributed so much to Larvartin’s unpopularity as his betrayal of Sescastri. Until the terrible battle began, the city had been relatively intact; afterwards two-thirds of the population lay dead in the streets and most of the buildings had been pounded to rubble. He was so unpopular at first that even the Russians felt they had to install someone more neutral as Prime Minister. Of course, his actions were entirely consistent with the principle he followed throughout his career: that it is more important to eliminate one’s rivals than one’s enemies.

50,853!!! But there’s more…